The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre - Feb 14, 1929 - HISTORY.com The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Share this: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Author The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre URL Publisher A+E Networks Fourmen dressed as police officers enter gangster Bugs Moran’s headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, line seven of Moran’s henchmen against a wall, and shoot them to death. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it is now called, was the culmination of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran. George “Bugs” Moran was a career criminal who ran the North Side gang in Chicago during the bootlegging era of the 1920s. He fought bitterly with “Scarface” Al Capone for control of smuggling and trafficking operations in the Windy City. Throughout the 1920s, both survived several attempted murders. On one notorious occasion, Moran and his associates drovesix cars past a hotel in Cicero, Illionis, where Capone and his associates were having lunch and showered the building with more than 1,000 bullets.

A $50,000 bounty on Capone’s head was the final straw for the gangster. He ordered that Moran’s gang be destroyed. On February 14, a delivery of bootleg whiskey was expected at Moran’s headquarters. But Moran was late and happened to see police officers entering his establishment. Moran waited outside, thinking that his gunmen inside were being arrested in a raid. However, the disguised assassins were actually killing the seven men inside. The murdered men included Moran’s best killers, Frank and Pete Gusenberg. Reportedly Frank was still alive when real officers appeared on the scene. When asked who had shot him, the mortally wounded Gusenberg kept his code of silence, responding, “No one, nobody shot me.” The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre actually proved to be the last confrontation for both Capone and Moran. Capone was jailed in 1931 and Moran lost so many important men that he could no longer control his territory. On the seventh anniversary of the massacre, Jack McGurn, one of the Valentine’s Day hit men,was killed him in a crowded bowling alley with a burst of machine-gun fire.

McGurn’s killer remains unidentified, but was likely Moran, though hewas never charged with the murder. Moran was relegated to small-time robberies until he was sent to jail in 1946. He died in Leavenworth Federal Prison in 1957 of lung cancer. Related Videos St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- Chicago Tribune St. Valentine's Day Massacre Feb. 13, 2016 On Feb. 14, 1929, seven men were lined up against the wall in a North Side garage and gunned down execution-style. The infamous mob hit became known as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Five known members of George 'Bugs' Moran's gang, one associate and a garage worker were killed. The hit was allegedly orchestrated by rival mob boss Al Capone, who was conveniently at his Florida home at the time. Next ▶ Link to this photo The bodies of six of the seven men slain on Feb. 14, 1929, in the S. M. C. Cartage Company garage at 2122 N. Clark St. on Chicago's North Side in what became known as the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre, sprawl on a floor and a chair. Several of the dead were members of a North Side gang run by George "Bugs" Moran, who had a rivalry with Al Capone and his gang. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ The body of one of the seven victims is placed in an ambulance with Coroner Herman M. Bundesen, center, in attendance after the mass shooting occurred. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ A crowd gathers in the alley behind 2122 N. Clark St., as police remove the victims of the St. Valentine's Day massacre. — Chicago Tribune historical photo, Jan. 28, 2004 ◀ Previous Next ▶ A crowd outside the Clark Street garage, owned by George "Bugs" Moran, where the St. Valentine's Day massacre took place on Feb. 14, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo Mrs. Alphonsine Morin, who lived across the street from the garage, was one of two witnesses who saw the assassins leave the garage after the massacre.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Morin saw two men who looked like policemen coming out of the garage after hearing the shooting. Both Morin and the other witness, Mrs. Jeanette Landesman, received a letter six days later advising them to "keep your mouth shut." Morin, seen here circa February 1929, left town the minute she received the letter. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo The body of Albert Kachellek, aka "James Clark", is removed from the county morgue on Feb. 15, 1929. Clark was the brother-in-law of gang leader George "Bugs" Moran and was said to have the reputation of a hardened killer. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Curious spectators and friends and family of the dead rush to the scene of the St. Valentine's Day massacre to identify the victims. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo The coroners jury, led by Coroner Herman N. Bundesen, left, at the inquest for the Clark Street St. Valentine's Day Massacre on Feb. 15, 1929.

The coroner said 20 to 25 bullets were found in each of the seven bodies. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo Mrs. Josephine Schwimmer, the mother of murdered Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer, 29, at an inquest for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on Feb. 15, 1929 at the Hudson Avenue police station in Chicago. Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer was the only one of the seven men killed who was not in the George "Bugs" Moran gang. The Chicago Tribune noted that Schwimmer was an optometrist with a hoodlum complex, who liked to associate with gangsters. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo Capt. William 'Shoes' Schoemaker shows four machine guns at the inquest for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on April 19, 1929. Coroner Bundesen had summoned all firearm dealers in the area who had been known to sell machine guns to the coroner's jury in Chicago.

— Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ The coroner jurors watch a re-enactment of the St. Valentine's Day massacre of 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo On April 19, 1929, Coroner Herman N. Bundesen, right, and Lt. Col. C. H. Goddard look over machine guns believed to be used in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Coroner Bundesen had summoned all firearm dealers in the area who had been known to sell machine guns to the coroner's jury in Chicago. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ During the prohibition era, Al Capone controlled Chicago's underworld with dozens of murders attributed to him and his gang, including the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929. — Chicago Tribune ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo Mrs. Myrtle Gorman, center, of 434 Roscoe Street, was the wife of Peter Gusenberg, a gang leader for George "Bugs" Moran. Gusenberg, 40, was murdered when during the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre. Mrs. Gorman denied all knowledge of her husbands activities, leaves the courthouse after the coroner's inquest. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo The funeral for gangster brothers Frank and Peter Gusenberg was held on Feb. 18, 1929, and was packed with floral arrangments, including one heart believed to be sent from gang leader George "Bugs" Moran. The brothers were leaders in the Bugs Moran gang. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Link to this photo Mrs. Josephine Schwimmer (with handkerchief), the mother of Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer, leaves the chapel at the funeral for her son on Feb. 18, 1929. Schwimmer, an optometrist with a hoodlum complex, was one of the seven men killed during the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on Feb. 14, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous St. Valentine's Day Massacre St. Valentine's Day Massacre St. Valentine's Day Massacre St.

Valentine's Day Massacre, 1929 Posing as police officers conducting a routine raid on February 14, 1929, four men entered a warehouse at 2122 N. Clark Street, used by George “Bugs” Moran and his gang to store liquor . The impostors lined up six gang members and a hanger-on against a wall, produced machine guns from under their overcoats, and opened fire. The prime suspect was Al Capone, head of Chicago's crime syndicate. Moran's North Side gang, the largest obstacle to the Capone organization's power in metropolitan Chicago, had hijacked Capone's liquor shipments, competed in protection rackets, and murdered Capone allies. Law enforcement officials could not prove any involvement by Capone, who was in Miami at the time. No one was ever tried for the killings. The raid's cold-blooded efficiency left the public in shock, and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre came to symbolize gang violence. It confirmed popular images associating Chicago with mobsters, crime, and spectacular carnage. The site of the warehouse, razed in 1967, continues to draw tourists from around the world.

Christopher P. Thale St. Valentine's Day Massacre | World History Project St. Valentine's Day Massacre Capone's most notorious killing was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, four Capone men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang. Because two of Capone's men were dressed as police, the seven men in the garage thought it was a police raid. As a result, they dropped their guns and put their hands against the wall. Using two shotguns and two machine guns, the Capone men fired more than 150 bullets into the victims. Six of the seven killed were members of Moran's gang; the seventh was an unlucky friend. Moran, probably the real target, was across the street when Capone's men arrived and stayed away when he saw the police uniforms. As usual, Capone had an alibi; he was in Florida during the massacre.

Source: Chicago Historical Society Added by: corey The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre is the name given to the death of seven people as part of a Prohibition Era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago, Illinois, in the summer of 1929: the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone and the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. Former members of the Egan's Rats gang were also suspected to have played a large role in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, assisting Capone. The Massacre On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929 St. Valentine's Day, six members of the "Bugs" Moran gang and Reinhardt H. Schwimmer were lined up against the rear inside wall of the garage of the SMC Cartage Company (2122 North Clark Street) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side. They were then shot and killed, possibly by members of Capone's gang, possibly by "outside talent" (that is, gangsters from outside the city who would not be known to their victims), most likely by a combination of both.

Two of the men were dressed as Chicago police officers, and the others were dressed in long trenchcoats, according to witnesses who saw the "police" leading the other men at gunpoint out of the garage (part of the plan). When one of the dying men, Frank Gusenberg, was asked who shot him, he replied, "I'm not gonna talk - nobody shot me" despite having 22 bullet wounds. Capone himself had arranged to be on vacation in Florida. The St. Valentine's Massacre resulted from a plan devised by a member or members of the Capone gang to eliminate the Polish-Irish Bugs Moran, the boss of the North Side Gang, formerly headed up by Dion O'Banion who was murdered nearly five years earlier. Jack McGurn is the person most frequently cited by researchers as a suspected planner.

The massacre was planned by the Capone mob for a number of reasons: in retaliation for an unsuccessful attempt by Frank and his brother Peter Gusenberg to murder Jack McGurn earlier in the year, the North Side Gang's complicity in the murder of Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo as well as Antonio "The Scourge" Lombardo, and Bugs Moran's muscling in on a Capone-run dog track in the Chicago suburbs. Also, the rivalry between Moran and Capone for control of the lucrative Chicago bootlegging business led Capone to plan the hits and the O'Banion's gang demise. The plan was to lure Moran and his men to the SMC Cartage warehouse on North Clark Street. It is assumed usually that the North Side Gang was lured to the garage with the promise of a cut-rate shipment of bootleg whiskey, supplied by Detroit's Purple Gang. However, some recent studies dispute this. All seven victims (with the exception of John May) were dressed in their best clothes, hardly suitable for unloading a large shipment of whiskey crates and driving it away. The real reason for the North Siders gathering in the garage may never be known for certain.

A four-man team would then enter the building, two disguised as police officers, and kill Moran and his men. Before Moran and his men arrived, Capone stationed lookouts in the apartments across the street from the warehouse. Wishing to keep the lookouts inconspicuous, Capone had hired two unrecognizable thugs to stand watch in rented rooms across the street from the garage. At around 10:30 a.m. on St. Valentine's Day, four men arrived at the warehouse in two cars: a Cadillac sedan and a Peerless, both outfitted to look like detective sedans. Two men were dressed in police uniforms and two in street clothes. The Moran gang had already arrived at the warehouse. However, Moran himself was not inside. One account states that Moran was supposedly approaching the warehouse, spotted the police car, and fled the scene. Another account was that Moran was simply late getting there. The lookouts allegedly confused one of Moran's men (most likely Albert Weinshank, who was the same height, build and even physically resembled Moran) for Moran himself: he then signaled for the gunmen to enter the warehouse.

The two phony police, carrying shotguns, exited the Peerless and entered the warehouse through the two rear doors. Inside they found members of Moran's gang, a sixth man named Reinhart Schwimmer, who was not actually a gangster but more of a gang "hanger-on", and a seventh man, John May, who was a mechanic fixing one of the cars, and technically not a member of the gang but an occasionally hired mechanic. The killers told the seven men to line up facing the back wall. There was apparently not any resistance, as the Moran men thought their captors were real police, and it was likely a "show" bust merely to garner good press for the police department. Then the two "police officers" let in two men through the front door facing Clark Street. This pair, riding in the Cadillac, were dressed in civilian clothes. Two of the killers started shooting with Thompson sub-machine guns, one containing a 20-round magazine and the other a 50-round drum. All seven men were killed in a volley of seventy machine-gun bullets and two shotgun blasts according to the coroner's report.

To show bystanders that everything was under control, the men in street clothes came out with their hands up, prodded by the two uniformed cops. The only survivor in the warehouse was John May's German shepherd, Highball. When the real police arrived, they first heard the dog howling. On entering the warehouse, they found the dog trapped under a beer truck and the floor covered with blood, shell casings, and corpses. Photographs of the scene were taken immediately after the shooting by Jun Fujita and published in the Chicago Daily News. The victims The seven men killed that morning were: 1. Peter Gusenberg, a front line enforcer for the Moran organization. 2. Frank Gusenberg, the brother of Peter Gusenberg and also an enforcer. Frank was miraculously still alive when police first arrived on the scene. He died three hours later, saying only, "Nobody shot me." when questioned by the police on the perpetrator 3. Albert Kachellek, alias "James Clark", Moran's second-in-command. 4. Adam Heyer, the bookkeeper and business manager of the Moran gang. 5.

Reinhart Schwimmer, an optician who had abandoned his practice to gamble on horse racing (unsuccessfully) and associate with the Moran gang. He would, in contemporary parlance, be referred to as a "gang groupie". Though Schwimmer called himself an "optometrist" he was actually an optician (an eyeglass fitter) and he had no medical training. 6. Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran. His physical and even clothing resemblance to Moran is what allegedly set the massacre in motion before Moran actually arrived. 7. John May, an occasional car mechanic for the Moran gang, though not a gang member himself. May had two earlier arrests for safeblowing (no convictions) but was attempting to work legally. However, his desperate need of cash, with a wife and seven children, caused him to accept jobs with the Moran gang as a mechanic. The investigation The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time. At first, it was thought that police may have indeed been responsible for the killings, but 255 detectives were soon cleared. Chicago Police scrambled to figure out who had been responsible.

Since it was common knowledge that Moran was hijacking Capone's Detroit-based liquor shipments, police focused their attention on the Purple Gang. Mug shots of Purple members George Lewis, Eddie Fletcher, Phil Keywell and his kid brother Harry, were picked out by the landlady across the street as the phony roomers. Later, the women who identified them wavered, and, Fletcher, Lewis, and Harry Keywell were all questioned and cleared by Chicago Police. Nevertheless, the Keywell brothers (and by extension the Purple Gang) would remain ensnared in the massacre case for all time. A week after the massacre, a 1927 Cadillac sedan was found disassembled and partially burned in a garage on Wood Street. It was determined that the car was used by the massacre killers. The garage was located two blocks from the Circus Café, which was operated by Claude Maddox, a former St. Louis gangster and member of the Capone mob. Detectives checking leads in St. Louis discovered that former members of the Egan's Rats mob may have played a part. They soon announced they were seeking Fred "Killer" Burke and James Ray as the two uniformed police officers in the garage.

Burke and other members of the mob had been known to use police uniforms to fool their victims. Police also proposed that Joseph Lolordo may have been one of the machine gunners, mostly likely because his brother Pasqualino had recently been murdered by the North Side Gang. Police also announced they suspected Capone gunmen John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, as well as Jack McGurn himself, and Frank Rio, a Capone bodyguard. Police eventually charged McGurn and Scalise with the massacre. John Scalise was murdered before he went to trial and the charges against Jack McGurn were downgraded to a violation of the Mann Act, stemming from taking the main witness against him, girlfriend Louise Rolfe (who became known as the "Blonde Alibi"), across state lines to marry. The case stagnated until December 14, 1929, when Berrien County sheriffs raided the St. Joseph, Michigan bungalow of “Frederick Dane”. Dane had been the registered owner of a vehicle driven by Fred "Killer" Burke. Burke had been drinking and rear-ended another vehicle in front of the police station. Officer Charles Skelly ran outside to investigate.

When Burke attempted to drive away, Officer Skelly hopped on the running board and was shot off. He died of his wounds a short time later. When police raided Burke's bungalow, they found a bulletproof vest, bonds recently stolen from a Wisconsin bank, two Thompson submachine guns, pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Both machine guns were determined to have been used in the massacre. Unfortunately, no further concrete evidence would surface in the massacre case. Burke would be captured over a year later on a Missouri farm. As the case against him in the murder of Officer Skelly was strongest, he was tried in Michigan and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Fred Burke died in prison in 1940. Aftermath Public outrage over The St. Valentine's Day Massacre marked the beginning of the end to Moran's power. Although Moran suffered a heavy blow, he still managed to keep control of his territory until the early 1930s, when control passed to the Chicago Outfit under Frank Nitti. The massacre also brought the belated attention of the federal government to bear on Capone and his criminal activities.

In 1931, Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and was imprisoned for 11 years. The massacre ultimately affected both Moran and Capone and left the war they had with each other a stalemate. The massacre did severely cripple the North Side gang, a blow from which they never fully recovered. But the primary target of the massacre, Moran, escaped, and the public and police pressure brought to bear on the Capone organization hampered their operation almost as badly. Though Jack McGurn would beat the massacre charges, he would be murdered himself on February 15, 1936. The two most widely accepted theories credit either Bugs Moran or the Chicago Outfit itself under Frank Nitti with the killing, as McGurn had become a public relations liability to the Outfit. The Bolton revelations On January 8, 1935, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents surrounded a Chicago apartment building at 3920 North Pine Grove, looking for the remaining members of the Barker-Karpis Gang. A brief shootout erupted, resulting in the death of bank robber Russell Gibson. Also taken into custody were Doc Barker, Byron Bolton and two women.

When agents began interrogating the two men, they got nothing of value from Dock Barker, but Bolton (a hitherto obscure criminal) proved to be a “geyser of information” as one crime historian put it. A former Navy machine gunner and member of the old Egan’s Rats gang, Bolton had for years been the valet and sidekick of a slick Chicago hit man named Fred Goetz, who was also known as “Shotgun George” Ziegler. Byron had been party to many of the Barker Gang’s crimes, and even pinpointed the Florida hideout of Ma and Freddie Barker (who were killed in a shootout with the FBI a week later). Bolton kept on talking, and to the agents’ surprise, claimed to have taken part in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with his pal Goetz, Fred Burke, and several others. The FBI (having no jurisdiction in a state murder case) attempted to keep Bolton’s revelations confidential, until the Chicago American newspaper somehow got their hands on a second-hand version of the bank robber’s confession. The newspaper declared that the crime had been “solved”, despite being stonewalled by J.

Edgar Hoover and the Bureau, who did not want any part of the massacre case. Garbled versions of Bolton’s story went out in the national media. Pieced together, his tale went like this: Bolton claimed that the murder of Bugs Moran had been plotted in “October or November” 1928 at a Couderay, Wisconsin resort owned by Fred Goetz. Present at this meet were Goetz, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Fred Burke, Gus Winkeler, Louis Campagna, Daniel Serritella, and William Pacelli. The men stayed two or three weeks, hunting and fishing when they weren’t planning the murder of their rival. Byron Bolton claimed he and Jimmy Moran (or Morand) were charged with watching the S.M.C. Cartage garage and phoning the signal to the killers at the Circus Café when Moran arrived at the meet. Police had indeed found a letter addressed to Bolton in the lookout nest (and possibly a vial of prescription medicine.) Bolton guessed that the actual killers had been Burke, Winkeler, Goetz, Bob Carey, Raymond Nugent, and Claude Maddox (four shooters and two getaway drivers).

Bolton gave an account of the massacre different from the one generally told by historians. He claimed that he saw only “plainclothes” men exit the Cadillac and go into the garage. This indicates that a second car was used by the killers. One witness, George Brichet, claimed to have seen at least two uniformed men exiting a car in the alley and entering the garage through its rear doors. A Peerless sedan had been found near a Maywood house owned by Claude Maddox in the days after the massacre, and in one of the pockets was an address book belonging to victim Albert Weinshank. Bolton’s mistake was when he mistook one of Moran’s men for the man himself, after which he telephoned the signal to the Circus Café. When the killers (who had expected to kill Moran and maybe two or three of his men) were unexpectedly confronted with seven men, they simply decided to kill them all and get out fast. Bolton claimed that Capone was furious with him for his mistake (and the resulting police pressure) and threatened to kill him, only to be dissuaded by Fred Goetz.

His claims were corroborated by Gus Winkeler’s widow Georgette, in both an official FBI statement and her memoirs, which were published in a four-part series in a true detective magazine during the winter of 1935-36. Mrs. Winkeler revealed that her husband and his pals had formed a special crew used by Capone for high-risk jobs. The mob boss was said to have trusted them implicitly and nicknamed them the “American Boys”. Byron Bolton’s statements were also backed up by William Drury, a maverick Chicago detective who had stayed on the massacre case long after everyone else had given up. Bank robber Alvin Karpis later claimed to have heard second-hand from Ray Nugent about the massacre and that the “American Boys” were paid a collective salary of $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also claimed that Capone himself told him while they were in Alcatraz together that Goetz had been the actual planner of the massacre. Despite Byron Bolton’s statements, no action was taken by the FBI. All the men he named, with the exceptions of Burke and Maddox, were all dead by 1935.

Bank robber Harvey Bailey would later complain in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in Calumet City at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Claude Maddox was questioned fruitlessly by Chicago Police, and there the matter lay. Crime historians are still divided on whether or not the “American Boys” committed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Other suspects Over the years, many mobsters, in and out of Chicago, would be named as part of the Valentine's Day hit team. Two prime suspects are Capone hit men John Scalise and Albert Anselmi; both men were lethal killers and are frequently mentioned as possibilities for two of the shooters. In the days after the massacre, Scalise was heard to brag, “I am the most powerful man in Chicago.” He had recently been elevated to the position of vice-president in the Unione Siciliana by its president, Joseph Guinta. Nevertheless, Scalise, Anselmi, and Guinta would be found dead on a lonely road near Hammond, Indiana on May 8, 1929.

Gangland lore has it that Al Capone had discovered that the pair was planning on betraying him. At the climax of a dinner party thrown in their honor, Capone produced a baseball bat and beat the trio to death. One recent addition to the roll of suspects is Tony Accardo, then a twenty-two year old gangster and driver for Jack McGurn. Many years later, Accardo would boast to his fellow gangsters that he had taken part (FBI agent William Roemer overheard him on a wiretap.) Most historians believe that while Accardo may have played a peripheral role in the murders, he was probably not one of the actual shooters. Another suspect was future mob boss Sam Giancana, then a twenty-year old member of the 42 Gang. Giancana was arrested in the days after the massacre on a charge of general investigation, and most familiar with the case don’t believe he played a major role. New York mob informant Dominick Montiglio would later claim in the book Murder Machine that his uncle Anthony 'Nino' Gaggi, intimated that his uncle Frank Scalise had been one of the killers in the massacre.

While not likely, this shows how the massacre continues to capitivate people to this day. Some people today speculate that perhaps Capone really was innocent after all. Maybe it was a bunch of crooked cops or an internal beef amongst the Moran Gang. One historian suspects a bunch of "hillbilly gangsters."[citation needed] The true identities of the shooters may never be known with certainty. The murder weapons The two Thompson submachine guns (serial numbers 2347 and 7580) found in Fred Dane’s (an alias for Fred Burke) Michigan bungalow were personally driven to the Chicago coroner’s office by the Berrien County DA. Ballistic expert Calvin Goddard tested the weapons and determined that both had been used in the massacre. One of them had also been used in the murder of Brooklyn mob boss Frankie Yale, which confirmed the NYPD’s long-held theory that Burke, and by extension Al Capone, had been responsible for Yale's death. Gun No. 2347 had been originally purchased on November 12, 1924 by Les Farmer, a deputy sheriff in Marion, Illinois, which happened to be the seat of Williamson County.

Marion and the surrounding area were then overrun by the warring bootleg factions of the Shelton brothers and Charlie Birger. Deputy Farmer was documented as having ties with the Egan’s Rats gang, based 100 miles away in St. Louis. By the beginning of 1927 at the very latest, the weapon had wound up in Fred Burke’s possession. It’s possible he used this same Tommygun in Detroit’s Milaflores Massacre on March 28, 1927. Gun No. 7580 had been sold by Chicago sporting goods owner Peter von Frantzius to a Victor Thompson (aka Frank V. Thompson) in the care of the Fox Hotel of Elgin, Illinois. Some time after the purchase the machine gun wound up with James "Bozo" Shupe, a small-time hood from Chicago’s West Side who had ties to various members of Capone’s Outfit. Both submachine guns are currently in the possession of the Allegan County Police. The crime scene and bricks from the murder wall The garage, which stood at 2122 N.

Clark Street, was demolished in 1967; the site is now a landscaped parking lot for a nursing home. There is still controversy over the actual bricks used to build the north inside wall of the building where the mobsters were lined up and shot. They were claimed to be responsible, according to stories, for bringing financial ruin, illness, bad luck and death to anyone who bought them. The bricks from the bullet-marked inside North wall were purchased and saved by Canadian businessman George Patey in 1967. His original intention was to use it in a restaurant that he represented, but the restaurant's owner didn't go for the idea. Patey ended up buying the bricks himself, outbidding three or four others. Patey had the wall painstakingly taken apart and had each of the 414 bricks numbered, then shipped them back to Canada. There are various different reports about what George Patey did with the bricks after he got them. In 1978, Time Magazine reported that Patey reassembled the wall and put it on display in a wax museum with gun-wielding gangsters shooting each other in front of it to the accompaniment of recorded bangs.

The wax museum later went bankrupt. Another source, an independent newspaper in the UK, reported in February 2000 that the wall toured shopping malls and exhibitions in the United States for a couple of decades. In 1968 Patey stopped exhibiting the bricks and put them into retirement. Patey opened a nightclub called the Banjo Palace in 1971. It had a Roaring Twenties theme. The famous bricks were installed inside the men's washroom with Plexiglas placed right in front of it to shield it, so that patrons could urinate and try to hit the targets painted on the Plexiglas. In a 2001 interview with an Argentinian journalist, Patey said, "I had the most popular club in the city. People came from high society and entertainment, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum." The bricks were placed in storage until 1997 when Patey tried to auction them off on a website called Jet Set On The Net. The deal fell through after a hard time with the auction company. In 1999, Patey tried to sell them brick by brick on his own website.

The last known substantial offer for the entire wall was made by a Las Vegas casino but Patey refused the $175,000 offer. Patey died on December 26, 2004, having never revealed how much he paid to buy the bricks at auction. The St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago | History Today The St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago USA , North America Economic History Richard Cavendish remembers the infamous mafia massacre of February 14th, 1929. Prohibition in the United States gave a massive boost to crime. In Chicago in the 1920s gangs made fortunes from illegal liquor and the associated protection and vice rackets. The relationships between them were uneasy and there were shifting alliances, disputes over territory and attempts to take complete control by ambitious leaders. In 1924 a storm of violence broke out between the Italian-Sicilian mob led first by Johnny Torrio and then by Al Capone on the city's South Side and the Irish-Jewish crew under Dion O'Banion on the North Side.

The Chicago Sun-Times talked of 'the bootleg battle of the Marne' and an editorial in the Herald and Examiner declared 'This is war' as gang killings and gun battles shook the city. Incongruously, Dion O’Banion owned a flower shop on North State Street, where he liked to serve customers and arrange attractive bouquets and window displays. He also supplied wreaths and flowers for expensive gangster funerals. He was greeted amiably there one day by four customers who shot him dead, and his was the most lavish funeral yet. Capone sent a basket of roses ‘From Al’. A peace treaty was organised in 1926 by the leading gangsters, but it did not hold. Capone, who was cheered to the echo by crowds at sporting events, drove about in an armoured car and was an exceptionally generous tipper. He was intent on taking control of Chicago and was on his way to becoming the most famous criminal of his time. O’Banion was eventually succeeded as leader of the North Side gang by George ‘Bugs’ Moran, an Irish gangster known more for muscle than brain power, who had no intention of submitting to ‘them Sicilians’.

On February 13th, 1929, a tempting phone call to Moran told him that a truckload of whisky had just arrived from Detroit and he could have it at a bargain price. He ordered the whisky to be delivered at 10.30 the next morning at the garage of the S.M.C. Cartage Company on North Clark Street, where he kept his bootlegging trucks. It happened to be St Valentine’s Day, the day for delivering tender tokens of affection, when a Cadillac, ostensibly a police car, drove up to the building at around 10.50 am and five men got out. Witness statements varied over details, but it seems that two of the men were in police uniforms and the other three in ordinary civilian clothes. They went into the garage. Eight minutes later, after loud rattling noises and what sounded like trucks backfiring, two of the civilians came out with their hands up, shepherded by the third, and the two ‘police officers’ with guns in their hands, described by a witness as ‘walking slow and easy-like’. The men drove away, neighbours cautiously investigated and found a scene which would make headlines all over the country.

Six dead men and another who was dying were lying on the concrete floor among scattered tyres, pools of blood, chairs and shell casings at the foot of a wall. Five of them were members of Moran’s gang, another was a Moran hanger-on and the last was an unfortunate mechanic who worked in the garage and just happened to be there. His dog was the only survivor. The police investigation showed that the men had been lined up against the wall and mowed down by machine-gun bullets sprayed efficiently across first their heads, then their chests and finally their stomachs. Two of them had been finished off with a shotgun. Some of the bodies’ heads, arms and legs had been severed. The dying Moran gangster was taken to hospital. When the police asked who shot him, he answered: ‘Nobody shot me.’ He died a few hours later, still refusing to say what had happened and who had done it. Capone was away from Chicago at the time, but few doubted who had ordered the massacre. Certainly Moran had not. The assailants had presumably intended to kill Moran himself, but he arrived late at the scene. One of the dead men who looked and dressed rather like Moran may have been taken for him by the gunmen.

They may have been a mixture of Capone’s men and hitmen brought in from outside. After long and complicated investigations, two Capone gunmen were accused of the killings and sent for trial, but one of them was murdered and the other was given an alibi by his girlfriend. He too was murdered later on. Moran managed to keep control of his territory for a while, but the North Side gang never recovered and was presently taken over by an operation called the Chicago Outfit. The massacre concentrated the federal authorities’ attention on Capone. He was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and sentenced to prison for 11 years. He died in 1947. Moran died in prison ten years later. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre - Chicago Tribune News Nation & World National politics The St. Valentine's Day Massacre On Feb. 14, 1929, seven men were lined up against the wall in a North Side garage and gunned down execution-style. The infamous mob hit became known as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Five known members of George 'Bugs' Moran's gang, one associate and a garage worker were killed.

The hit was allegedly orchestrated by rival mob boss Al Capone, who was conveniently at his Florida home at the time. (Chicago Tribune) John O'BrienTribune staff reporter On this frigid morning, in an unheated brick garage at 2122 N. Clark St., seven men were lined up against a whitewashed wall and pumped with 90 bullets from submachine guns, shotguns and a revolver. It was the most infamous of all gangland slayings in America, and it savagely achieved its purpose--the elimination of the last challenge to Al Capone for the mantle of crime boss in Chicago. By 1929, Capone's only real threat was George "Bugs" Moran, who headed his own gang and what was left of Dion O'Banion's band of bootleggers. Moran had long despised Capone, mockingly referring to him as "The Beast." At about 10:30 a.m., four men burst into the SMC Cartage Co. garage that Moran used for his illegal business. Two of the men were dressed as police officers.

The quartet presumably announced a raid and ordered the seven men inside the garage to line up against a wall. Then they opened fire. Witnesses, alerted by the rat-a-tat staccato of submachine guns, watched as the gunmen sped off in a black Cadillac touring car that looked like the kind police used, complete with siren, gong and rifle rack.The victims, killed outright or left dying in the garage, included Frank "Hock" Gusenberg, Moran's enforcer, and his brother, Peter "Goosy" Gusenberg. Four of the other victims were Moran gangsters, but the seventh dead man was Dr. Reinhardt Schwimmer, an optician who cavorted with criminals for thrills. Missing that morning was Capone's prize, Moran, who slept in. Capone missed the excitement too. Vacationing at his retreat at Palm Island, Fla., he had an alibi for his whereabouts and disclaimed knowledge of the coldblooded killings. Few believed him. No one ever went to jail for pulling a trigger in the Clark Street garage, which was demolished in 1967. Although Moran survived the massacre, he was finished as a big criminal.

For decades to come, only one mob, that of Capone and his successors, would run organized crime in Chicago. But the Valentine's Day Massacre shocked a city that had been numbed by "Roaring '20s" gang warfare over control of illegal beer and whiskey distribution. "These murders went out of the comprehension of a civilized city," the Tribune editorialized. "The butchering of seven men by open daylight raises this question for Chicago: Is it helpless?" In the following years, Capone and his henchmen were to become the targets of ambitious prosecutors. Saint Valentine's Day Massacre | mass murder, Chicago, Illinois, United States [1929] | Britannica.com Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre mass murder, Chicago, Illinois, United States [1929] Written By: Srebrenica massacre Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, (Feb. 14, 1929), mass murder of a group of unarmed bootlegging gang members in Chicago . The bloody incident dramatized the intense rivalry for control of the illegal liquor traffic during the Prohibition Era in the United States .

Disguising themselves as policemen, members of the Al Capone gang entered a garage at 2122 North Clark Street run by members of the George “Bugs” Moran gang, lined their opponents up against a wall, and shot them in cold blood. The victims included gang members Adam Heyer, Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg, John May, Al Weinshank, and James Clark , as well as a visitor, Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and other gangland killings, frequently portrayed vividly by the mass media throughout the world, came to symbolize the violence of the Prohibition Era in Chicago. Learn More in these related articles: Prohibition (United States history [1920–1933]) legal prevention of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States from 1920 to 1933 under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment. Although the temperance movement, which was widely supported, had succeeded in bringing about this legislation, millions of...

in Chicago (Illinois, United States): “No little plans” ...during the Prohibition years of the “Roaring” 1920s as a wide-open town, gaining a reputation for corruption, gangsterism, and intermittent mayhem. Al Capone, John Dillinger, and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre became bywords worldwide. Furthermore, the city government was virtually insolvent years before the 1929 stock market crash. Republican Thompson was defeated by Democrat... in prohibition (alcohol interdict) ...of bootlegging on a large scale. His annual earnings were estimated at $60,000,000. The rise of the bootlegging gangs led to a succession of gang wars and murders. A notorious incident was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, when the Capone gang shot to death seven members of the rival “Bugs” Moran gang. Historians of the underworld, however, suggest that by... More about Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre 4 References found in Britannica Articles history of Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback.

MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre Mass murder, Chicago, Illinois, United States [1929] Tips for Editing Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are the best.) Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Submit Thank You for Your Contribution! Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article.

Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission. Please try again later. Close St. Valentine's Day massacre -- Chicago Tribune St. Valentine's Day massacre Nov. 25, 2012 On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, St. Valentine's Day, seven mob associates were lined up against the rear inside wall of the garage at 2122 North Clark Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side, and executed. The victims of a conflict between the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone and the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. The murders were committed by Al Capone and his men who orchestrated a complex ruse to lure Bugs Moran to the warehouse for his assassination. Moran was running late that morning and fled the scene when he saw a police car (a fake, part of the ruse) approach the building. Next ▶ Seven were gunned down in the St.

Valentine's Day massacre in 1929, a hit believed ordered by Al Capone in an attempt to wipe out rival George "Bugs" Moran. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Buy this photo Onlookers watch police remove the bodies from the garage on North Clark Street. Seven men were lined up and riddled with bullets to eliminate the last challenge to Al Capone on February 14, 1929. The St. Valentine's Day shootings shocked a populace that had grown numb to gangland killings. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Buy this photo A crowd outside the North Clark Street garage, owned by George "Bugs" Moran, where the St. Valentine's Day massacre took place on Feb. 14, 1929. Seven were murdered in conflict between gangs during Prohibition. Al Capone is believed to have orchestrated the event. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Curious spectators and friends and family of the dead at the scene of the St. Valentine's Day massacre to identify the victims, Feb. 14, 1929.

— Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ The funeral of Frank and Peter Gusenberg on February 19, 1929, killed during the St. Valentine's Day massacre. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Mrs. Josephine Schwimmer leaving chapel at the funeral for her son, Reinhardt Schwimmer, February 28, 1929, who was killed during the St. Valentine's Day massacre. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Jurors witness a reenactment of the St. Valentine's Day massacre of 1929 in this undated photo. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ The body of Albert Kachellek "James Clark" is removed from the Cook County morgue on February 15, 1929. He was murdered in the St. Valentine's Day massacre. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Buy this photo A coroner and Major Goddard (Colonel Calvin Hooker Goddard) look over Thompson submachine guns on April 20, 1929.

The guns were believed to have been used in the Clark Street St. Valentine's Day massacre. Goddard established that Tommy guns were used in the massacre and that they were not police Tommy guns. His work on the massacre led to establishment of the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern. A sidenote, Major Goddard was later promoted to Colonel in the Army and went by Colonel Goddard in the 1930s. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Coroners jury on the St. Valentine's Day massacre inquest, April 15, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ An early booking mug for Joseph Aiello, whose feud with Al Capone and Antonio Lombardo was the source of many mob hits in the 1920s, including the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Coroners jury at the inquest for the St. Valentine's Day massacre, February 19, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Chief Shoemaker shows four submachine guns at the inquest for the St.

Valentine's Day massacre April 20, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Buy this photo Mrs. Frank Gusenberg, widow of the gangster slain in the St. Valentine's Day massacre, was to present letters of administration to a loop bank and obtain $100,000 or more by Liberty Bonds kept in a safety deposit box by the dead man. She is shown with an escort who refused to give his name February 21, 1929. — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous Next ▶ Buy this photo Mrs. Myrtle Gorman, center, of 434 Roscoe St., Common-law wife of Peter Gusenberg, who was murdered when rival gangsters mowed him and six companions down in a North Clark Street garage. Mrs Gorman denied all knowledge of Gusenberg's activities. Mrs. Gorman is leaving Gusenberg's inquest, February 19, 1929. The murders were known as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. (Caption as it appeared in the newspaper) — Chicago Tribune historical photo ◀ Previous On This Day In History 1929: The St.

Valentine’s Day Massacre [Graphic Image] On This Day In History 1929: The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre [Graphic Image] Louis Babcock February 14, 1929, saw four men disguised as police officers walking into the base of operations for Bugs Moran on North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. These “police officers” had the seven men that were in Moran’s headquarters, line up against the wall. Assuming they were going to be arrested, the seven men did what they were told. Shortly after they were lined up, the four disguised men opened fire and killed all seven of them. This act became known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre . Autopsies found from 1929 St. Valentine’s Day massacre pic.twitter.com/d4ecGyH6JK — Detroit Free Press (@freep) February 12, 2016 Moran, a gangster in Chicago, was in the middle of an intense gang war with Al Capone. Moran was running the North Side gang. His gang war with Capone was over control of the illegal alcohol bootlegging industry that ran wild during the days of prohibition.

At one point, Moran and his gang had intelligence of where Capone and his gang would be having lunch. Moran saw this as an opportunity to become the undisputed leader of the Chicago underworld. He and his crew drove over to where Capone was and unleashed an estimated 1,000 bullets into the building. Capone survived the attempt on his life and Moran proceeded to place a bounty of $50,000 on Scarface’s head. Capone had had enough of Bugs. Capone wanted to be the undisputed gang king in Chicago, and even though it was never proven, it is believed that it was Capone’s men that dressed up as police officers in order to pull off the massacre on North Clark Street. On that Valentine’s Day, Moran was expecting a shipment of illegal alcohol. He arrived late and saw the “police officers” storming into his building. Thinking that the police were there on a raid, Moran stayed put outside. Little did he know, his men were being executed in a massacre. Autopsy reports from 1929 St.

Valentine’s Day Massacre unearthed in Chicago: pic.twitter.com/Dr0HfxNDAD — ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) February 12, 2016 Eventually, real police officers showed up at the North Clark Street building. Seeing the carnage, they wanted to know who was responsible for the shooting. Frank Gusenberg was miraculously still alive. Police questioned him about who shot him and the six other men. Staying true to the code of silence that gangsters were famous four, Gusenberg didn’t tell them. “No one, nobody shot me.” Bugs Moran and Al Capone never had a confrontation with each other after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place. The seven men that were executed in a hail of gunfire were the seven best men in Moran’s gang operation. Unable to sustain the loss to his business infrastructure, Moran quickly lost the territory he once controlled. Moran fell out of power quickly and was no longer considered to be a real player in the criminal underworld. Al Capone ended up finally being arrested for good two years later. Capone had his fingers in many illegal activities when he was running the Chicago crime scene.

Some of the activities that Capone was linked to include murder, drug running, bootlegging alcohol, prostitution, murder and many others. None of these activities led to Capone going to jail for good. What finally allowed the Federal Government to arrest Al Capone was the fact that Capone never paid his taxes. One of the most dangerous gangsters in history was arrested for tax evasion. On February 14, 1936, the seven-year anniversary of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jack McGurn, one of the “police officers,” was out bowling. Gunfire erupted and McGurn was killed. No one was ever charged with the murder of McGurn, even though it was widely speculated that Moran was the one pulling the trigger. Do you think that Al Capone was behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre? [Image Via AP Photo/Harry L. Hall] St. Valentine's Day massacre - Chicago Tribune St. Valentine's Day massacre Crime scene Chicago Tribune historical photo Seven were gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929, a hit believed ordered by Al Capone in an attempt to wipe out rival George "Bugs" Moran.

Seven were gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929, a hit believed ordered by Al Capone in an attempt to wipe out rival George "Bugs" Moran. (Chicago Tribune historical photo) Removing the bodies Chicago Tribune historical photo Onlookers watch police remove the bodies from the garage on North Clark Street. Seven men were lined up and riddled with bullets to eliminate the last challenge to Al Capone on February 14, 1929. The St. Valentine's Day shootings shocked a populace that had grown numb to gangland killings. Onlookers watch police remove the bodies from the garage on North Clark Street. Seven men were lined up and riddled with bullets to eliminate the last challenge to Al Capone on February 14, 1929. The St. Valentine's Day shootings shocked a populace that had grown numb to gangland killings. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

Question: Which saint's day saw a massacre in Chicago in 1929?
Answer: St. Valentine's Day